Hourglass
by homeric
Summary: A minute, an hour, a day  it's not enough.
1. Sam

_**Disclaimer: Sam and Dean do not belong to me.**_

_**Set post season 2 so sort of spoilers.**_

_It's not a leap year_, Sam thinks. That's not something he really has ever thought of before: what did it matter if he had one more day to study? One more day to puzzle through dad's book or pretend not to be annoyed by the music blaring in the Impala. Music that Dean calls "classic" and he calls "twenty years out of date and more concerned with volume than melody." But one day seems an eternity all of a sudden; one day is one three hundred and sixty fifths of a year. If it had been a leap year then he would have had one extra day, and he of all people knows what can happen in a day.

He has been staring blankly at the computer screen for so long that the colours are blurred and the text might as well be hieroglyphics for all the sense they make. Raising his head, it takes a while for real life to rearrange itself - for a moment everything is pixilated like a fault in reality. _A glitch in the Matrix, _Jess would have said. She had loved that stupid movie, even made him watch the crappy sequels. But Jess is dead, The Matrix is a movie with actors and special effects, and the only one who's going to be snapping the clapperboard at the end of this particular scene is a demon looking to cross a name off its I.O.U list.

Dean is still at the counter of the cheap diner they had stopped at on the way to Kansas. Another spate of mysterious deaths, another long drive, one more stop off for congealed food and bitter coffee. The waitress is in her thirties, attractive enough in a slightly careworn way. Dean has her fluttering around him like a teenager, pressing her elbows together to deepen her cleavage, overly-mascara'd lashes fluttering coquettishly. Sam watches the exchange briefly, before turning his attention back to his computer. Once he might have rolled his eyes, been irritated at his brother for slowing down their mission for something that even now he considers tawdry and faintly embarrassing. Not anymore.

He looks the same; looking up at the woman with wicked green eyes and giving a grin that promises anything she wants so long as it's over in half an hour. He doesn't talk about what's to come and he never mentions their father, but he moves as though he knows what is expected of him and behaves accordingly. Seduction is no longer playful - there is a quiet desperation to it that most women do not see, and for the first time Sam knows what it is like to wake his brother from his nightmares and try not to be hurt when Dean snaps at him for his concern.

Sam shuts his computer and attempts to smile when the other waitress slides two plates of toast and eggs onto the table in front of him. Both he and Dean have ordered their eggs "easy", which is strange since Dean usually prefers his eggs so solid that they verge on the rubbery. It's a stupid little thing, but it's a couple of minutes saved, and when Dean slumps down into the seat opposite him, the waitress forgotten, Sam passes him the salt and doesn't say anything.


	2. Jo

**Disclaimer: Dean and Jo aren't mine. Spoilers for the finale of the second series.**

She doesn't need to turn around to know who has entered the bar when the door swings open and shuts with a soft click; in a strange way she isn't even surprised, although he had no business being there and the bar isn't due to open for another three days. Silently she stops polishing the so -pristine- it -hurts counter top and fetches two beers, popping the tops off with practiced ease. She's placed the drinks on the table and settled onto a chair opposite him before she even looks up.

"Hello Dean." He nods a greeting and takes a gulp of his beer, watching a dribble of condensation slide down the glass before meeting her gaze. "What brings you here?"

He doesn't answer the question, instead making a show of looking around the empty bar, at the brand new chairs and tables, the jukebox that doesn't have any music in it yet.

"Nice place," he remarks quietly. "Good to make a new start."

"We didn't have much choice." The reply comes too fast and too bitter, and Jo tries to temper her resentment. The bar is ok, she supposes - The Roadhouse was beyond saving, and this place was up for sale. It's big, not too old, not much character, but still close enough to the ruins of her past home; close enough for ghosts and memories to seep in, be they welcome or not.

"No." He watches her appraisingly. "I guess you didn't." He stretches, rubbing a hand over his short cropped hair, and for the first time Jo notices how tired he looks, the shadows under his eyes, the slump of his shoulders. Her mom had filled her in with what went down - Sam's death, Dean's deal, the destruction of the demon. It had taken a while for her to process the information, so relieved was she to find her mother alive. Later she had cried a little, searched through her father's books for a loop hole and longed for Ash and his haphazard brilliance. She had hoped and feared seeing Dean again, but now that he sits there, beautiful and damned, she just feels calm, as though deep down she knew that this was inevitable.

"Where's Sam?" She asks quietly. She's forgiven him long ago for what he did to her while possessed, but an awkward reunion is the last thing she needs tonight.

Dean gives her a quick, searching look, before turning his attention back to the bottle in his hands. "At the motel, probably watching porn."

"Porn?" Jo gives a half laugh. "Figured him more for the History Channel."

"Ah, he'll fool ya." He gives her a wicked, lopsided grin. "Still waters and all that. Speaking of which, where's Ellen?"

"Staying with my uncle upstate for a few days. He's sorting out the legal stuff for this place."

"And left you holding the fort." He nods thoughtfully. "So you two done the chick flick thing? Kissed and made up?"

She rolls her eyes but doesn't quite meet his eyes. She's trying to play it cool, just two old acquaintances having a beer, but she knows that her cheeks are flushed and there's a jittery nervousness that she knows he must have picked up on.

"She rang me, told me about The Roadhouse… about Ash." Taking a deep breath, she finds the courage to look at him steadily. "She told me everything."

"Ah." He rocks back on his chair and gives a wry smile that is more directed to the ceiling than her. "So you know about my little dance with the devil then."

"Yeah." She looks away, her eyes suddenly filling with tears. Mortified, she tries swallowing them down, knowing that he'll hate the perceived pity, but powerless to stop them. She hears the scrape of his chair against the floor, and then he's there, right in front of her, a calloused hand tipping her head up and brushing away her tears with his thumb.

"Easy, sweetheart." His voice is gentle, and the combination of sorrow and pain in his green eyes make her cry harder, until suddenly his lips are upon hers and she's clinging to his shoulders, unsure of whether she's trying to save him or herself. The kiss is fierce, almost bruising in its intensity, and when he hoists her up, her legs wrap instinctively around his waist. Closer, closer, she can't possibly get close enough. He breaks away long enough to ask where her room is, eyes heavy lidded with desire, and she nods towards the doorway, sliding off him and pulling him down the hallway. They crash through the doorway, shucking clothes; lips, hands desperately seeking, exploring. She scrambles into the centre of the bed, naked and trembling, watching with a nervous exhilarated awe as he divests himself of the last of his clothing, muscles sliding under smooth skin, so beautiful that she wants to cry. He slides a condom on before joining her, and for a brief, crazy moment she wants to tell him not to - that it doesn't matter if she gets pregnant, at least she'll have something left of him when he's gone. Then all thoughts flee because he's on top of her, touching her, becoming part of her and kissing her as though she's the only thing holding him to this world. It is a desperate coupling that leaves them both trembling and sated, sticky with sweat and silent. Dean falls asleep fairly quickly, but Jo lays awake for a long time and watches the steady rise and fall of his chest, the way his long eyelashes flutter when he dreams. She tells him that she loves him, secure in the knowledge that he cannot hear her.

_If this were a book,_ she thinks, _everything would change now. He would realize that he can't live without me, that we were meant to be together. We would find a way to break the pact and we'd grow old together. _She knows that none of that is going to happen. Dean didn't come to tell her that he loved her, he came to say goodbye, and being the man that he is, he did it the best way he knew how. She doesn't blame him for it, doesn't even blame herself. Time is short, he's taught her that, and she won't get another chance, that at least she's sure of. She watches the red numbers on her electronic clock flick through the minutes of the night before falling asleep, and when she wakes she does not need to open her eyes to know that he has gone.

**A/N thanks Suzanne Vega for the plot bunny **


End file.
